Joie Armstrong's mother, Leslie, lives in Florida, but makes the annual trip out to Yosemite for the closing campfire, the formal end of the two-week journey into the Yosemite backcountry. It is there that she is able to see the true fruits of the program inspired by her daughter. “I go as often as I can to thank these girls for being a gift to me,” says Leslie.

As the Armstrong Scholars program looks ahead to the next 50 years, one thing is for certain: the spirit of Joie is being actively kept alive. It is woven into the curriculum and through 20+ years of backcountry experiences. The scholars and the leaders and Leslie evoke Joie in ways big and small, inside and outside of the two-week journey.

Jenn Peach led the 2017 Armstrong Scholars program alongside Daniella Beinstock. When the 13-day excursion began, the high school-age women saw Jenn as mature, but little else beyond that — she was there to lead and instruct. After Jenn and Daniella held the open conversation period around the campfire, the dynamics of the entire group changed. One of the memorable questions they fielded around that campfire in the dark: “How do you have the courage to go do things by yourself?”

“At some point I said that I was the person who gave me permission to do things, and it sparked this fascinating conversation about the ‘permission’ to be certain things as a young woman. It opened everyone’s eyes to each other.”

Jacqueline Ruggieri held her arm up to the screen on our Zoom call. Scrawled in beautiful cursive on her wrist: “gulp life.” The phrase comes from a poem written by Joie Armstrong, and according to Jacqueline, it perfectly embodies who she understands Joie to have been before she was tragically killed in Yosemite National Park in 1999.

“Joie is that poem, ‘Gulp Life,’” she says. “There are at least three of us associated with the program who got this tattoo on our wrists independently of each other.”

When she got the tattoo in 2011, Jacqueline was a NatureBridge educator seven years removed from her experience as an Armstrong Scholar. For her, the path from one to the other is clear and direct. Without participating in the Armstrong Scholars program, she’s not sure where she would be today.